Machinist Apprentice | Haas Calibration Trunnion & Tool Probe | Day 130

Man, it feels good to get back to the shop!

The Renishaw OTS tool setter/probe was twisted and was loose on its rod, so today, I was tasked with figuring out why that was the case and fixing it. I initially thought the problem was related to a twisted piece of aluminum that attaches to an external nut and the tool probe, but I later found it was just a symptom of the problem. 

After taking it all apart and thoroughly cleaning all the components, I realized the whole issue was because of a loose nut, not on the inside, but on the outside, that attached the probe to the base! It was not a waste of time, though, as I learned more about how it worked and removed all the internal debris.

There's also been an issue with the trunnion machine zero wasn't correct in both A & B axis. This hasn't really been a problem as we can find the a-axis zero and add it to the work offset. It's mostly a pain when powering up the machine, and it's visibly off and takes a few seconds longer to start up a new operation. 

I initially thought this would be a super easy fix to input a new global or machine zero. Still, after doing some quick searching online and on the Haas controller, I couldn't find any information on this. I'm honestly a bit shocked this isn't something that you can easily fix, and I feel it would be something that needs to be done every so often with a & b axis add-ons. I called up the Haas service line, and after getting bounced around to several technicians, they too didn't have a solution for me. They're doing some research on the matter, so I will have to wait until I get a call back before finding a conclusion on this matter. 

I assume that since the machine zero is seldom changed, it's a behind-the-controller option, and you can't access it without permissions.